You're Dead, Sam
by Bellephont17
Summary: Sam has died and gone to Heaven. It's anything but Paradise, however, as Sam tries to find a way to communicate with Dean in order to stop his brother from making a deal with a crossroads demon. Canon-based fic, set directly after 2.22 "All Hell Breaks Loose - Part 1" featuring enlightening and painful memories of Stanford, Flagstaff, and other cannonical events.
1. Mommy Dearest

**a/n: Ash said in "Dark Side of the Moon" that Sam and Dean had both been to Heaven more times than anyone he knew, but they had forgotten about it thanks to the angels mind-wiping them.**

**This is my interpretation of the first Winchester visit to the Pearly Gates.**

**Takes place just after 2.22 "All Hell Breaks Loose – Part 1".**

Sam woke up with a jerk, as though he had heard his name called. He was lying on his back and staring up at a plain white ceiling. Sunlight and the shadows of billowing curtains danced across it, and the aura of late summer lightened the conditioned air. It was clean and cool and smelled faintly like fabric softener and baby powder.

Sitting up slowly, Sam felt a phantom pain between his shoulder blades, but it came and went too quickly to merit more than a fleeting thought. More important, the young man felt, was how he had gotten here.

Sam sat there on the floor and kneaded his forehead with his fingertips, trying to push through the fog in his brain. He remembered . . . a diner. It was raining, and Dean wanted extra onions. And pie. No surprises there. But what then?

It was all a haze. Whatever had happened between then and now couldn't have been good; Sam had a sick feeling sitting, cold and clammy, in his gut.

"Dean?" he hissed, not daring to call louder. Something about this place made him feel as though whispering were the only acceptable tone of voice. Like he was in a church or a cemetery. "Dean, are you there?"

There was no answer. Frowning, Sam pulled himself to his feet and looked around. The room was barren except for the open window and a clock. Instead of numbers, it had pictures of cars and airplanes. The hands were stuck on 8:12. For some reason, it made the cold, clammy feeling worse.

There was a door, too. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Doors were usually good – they indicated an escape route. He made for it. His hand was hovering over the doorknob when it turned by itself and he backed up as the door swung slowly and soundlessly open. He reached inside his jacket for his gun, but found the pocket empty.

"Sam."

The woman must have been in her late-thirties. Her blond hair fell around her face in loose ringlets. She smiled warmly, the first wrinkles of graceful old age creasing the skin around her mouth and eyes.

"Mom?" Sam breathed in disbelief.

"It's me, sweetie," Mary Winchester said softly. She stepped forward, arms outstretched and ready to embrace her son, but Sam stepped backward, the implications of her appearance beginning to dawn in his clearing mind.

"You're dead," he breathed.

Mary's smile faded. "Yes. I am." She hesitated. "And so are you."

"But I can't be," Sam attempted an incredulous laugh but it came out more of a choke.

"You are, honey. Jake stabbed you in the back with a knife, don't you remember? You died in your brother's arms. Right now your body's lying on a mattress in a cheap motel room."

Sam wanted to disbelieve her, shout at her for lying and make her tell him what had really happened. But the flood of memories was starting to rush through the mental dam his subconscious had put up. The haunted town of Cold Oak, South Dakota. The Yellow-Eyed Demon – Andy, Lily, Ava . . . Jake. The pain in Sam's back returned with a vengeance, and his eyes bugged out as his legs buckled.

Mary crossed the distance between them and grabbed his coat front, steadying him. "Sam, calm down," she said sternly, as though admonishing a child for throwing a temper tantrum. "You're going to be fine."

"Fine?" Sam regained his balance and pushed away from her. "I'm _dead_."

"You're in Heaven. And now nothing can ever hurt you again." Mary reached up to stroke his cheek. "No more nightmares, no more premonitions, no more monsters." Sam didn't notice her fingers trailing down his cheek. He stared into space, attempting to wrap his head around the idea. It was pretty heavy stuff – death, Heaven. How was he even in allowed in Heaven with demon blood coursing through his veins?

"What about Dean?" Sam asked suddenly.

Mary looked away, setting her face in a way that would have stopped Sam's heart – if Sam's heart had not already been stopped. "What is it?" he demanded. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I think you should try and forget about Dean," Mary said slowly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you shouldn't worry about him anymore. He's beyond your help." She sighed. "You can stop feeling answerable to him now. You're free – in Paradise."

"Some Paradise," Sam spat. "I'm not forgetting about Dean. If he's in trouble then I'm going to find a way to help."

Mary was clearly losing patience with her son. "You're dead, Sam," she said brusquely.

"Exactly. Which is why I have to find a way to contact Dean. Now. He's going to do something stupid, I know it." Sam's eyes widened as he realized the implications of Dean's rash actions. "He's going to try to bring me back, like Dad did for him. He's going to try and make a deal!"

Before Mary could say anything more, Sam pushed past her and burst out the door.


	2. I Remember That Fight

He was outside on a dark forest road. It was nighttime and drizzly. Confused, Sam looked back over his shoulder. He was standing on the front porch of a small, rather dilapidated condo.

"Hey, man, are you coming or what?" Zach Warren poked his head out of the Camry's driver's window. "Stanford's a couple of hours away and I still need to pick up Becky."

"Wha . . ." Sam blinked. This was the night he had left for Stanford, back in 2001. How had he gotten here?

"Sam!" John Winchester's gravelly voice burst from inside the condo. "Sam, get back in here right now!"

Sam turned to see his dad standing in the doorway. "Dad?"

"You think you can just run out on this family, you've got another thing coming," John bellowed at him. "I want your ass inside this condo this minute or I'm shooting your buddy and locking you in the trunk of the Impala until we reach the Mexican border."

"Dad, calm down, alright?" Dean appeared behind John's shoulder, looking surprisingly small and nervous. "Sammy, just . . . come back inside so we can talk this out, okay?"

"Dean," breathed Sam, crossing the porch and entering the small house. "Dean, thank God. Look, you've got to listen to me. I know you've got to be broken up about me being gone, but I don't want you to do anything stupid. Don't make any demon deals. You can't try to bring me back."

"What are you talking about, I'm not making any demon deals to keep you here," Dean said, confusion and hurt scrawled all over his face. "If you want to leave, then fine. Go. You take up too much space anyway."

John grabbed Sam by the collar and shook him. "You're abandoning us, boy. Leaving us for some high school friends who don't know a thing about you. We're your blood, we're your _blood_." With the back of his hand, John hit Sam across the mouth, splitting his lip.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on," Dean pushed between them. "Stop it, both of you! Right now, before I start blowing holes in the roof."

"Do you know how much I've sacrificed to keep this family together?" John strained against Dean's restraining arm across his chest. "You think half the time I didn't want to dump you two at the nearest mall and never come back?"

Dean's face froze, his resistance going slack before he turned and left the room, slamming the bedroom door behind him. John seemed to have realized what it was he had just said and shot a nervous glance after his oldest son. Sam took the opportunity to duck toward the front door. This was a painful memory – not something he wanted to relive. Besides, he had something he needed to do. Dean still needed saving.

"You walk you that door, don't you ever come back!" John shouted at him.

Sam looked over his shoulder at his dad, standing there smoking with rage. And then he left.

And walked right into his apartment at Flagstaff.


	3. This Is Flagstaff

Bringing his hands to his head, Sam blinked hard. _God, what's going on? _This whole thing felt like a bad acid trip. Was this Heaven? Reliving one's memories? But if that were true, shouldn't they be _happy _memories?

He shut the door behind him and walked slowly around the dark room. The radio was on, white noise nearly blocking out the garbled words coming through. The voice sounded familiar. It sounded like Dean. Nearly tripping over a cluttered coffee table, Sam hurried to the radio and knelt in front of it, adjusting the dial and attempting to get a better signal.

"_. . . Sam. Sam! Hey! Come here . . . Let me look at you . . ._"

"Dean?" Sam called. "Can you hear me?" He wasn't sure if it worked both ways, but it was worth a shot. "Dean, are you there?"

"_It's not even that bad . . . even that bad, alright? Sammy? . . . patch you up, okay? . . . You're gonna be . . . good as new. Take care of you . . . gonna take care of you. I've got you . . . My job, right? Look after . . ._"

The words sounded vaguely familiar. He had heard them as he was dying, he was sure of it. Sam ran his hand along the top of the radio. That's probably all it was, memories bleeding into one another. It wasn't actually Dean trying to contact him, which meant that he couldn't use this as a way to contact Dean.

"_Sam? . . . Sam! . . . Sammy!" _

"Sammy!"

Sam jumped and turned around to see Dean standing in the doorway of the apartment. Sam thought for a second that perhaps the radio had worked and he had been able to summon his brother, but then he realized that this Dean was substantially younger. He looked to be about twenty.

"Sammy, thank God. You're alive." Dean crossed the room as Sam stood up, and grabbed him in a hard hug before throwing him backwards onto the couch. "What the hell were you thinking, dude? You ran away on my watch! I thought you were dead! Or worse. Dad and I scoured every back road all the way from Indiana. Man, every time we passed a ditch I expected you to be lying in it."

"Look, Dean, I'm sorry, but I've really got to get going . . ."

"Why're you here? Why'd you bail?"

"It's difficult to explain," Sam said uncomfortably. He had just noticed Dean's puffy eye and the cut along his cheekbone that had scabbed over. Dad had apparently not been happy to learn that Dean had let Sam slip through his fingers and disappear. "I'm trying to save your life."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Damn it, Sam. Just . . . damn it. What would I have done if you'd been in real trouble?"

"Dean, just calm down. I'm fine." _Apart from being dead, _Sam thought wryly. He stood up and edged toward the door. "Sit down. Have a Funyun or something." Before Dean could do more than start forward, Sam fell back through the door, leaving Flagstaff and a bemused brother behind him.

He was knocked over instantly by something huge and heavy, scuffing his chin and palms on frigid asphalt.


	4. Meet The Wolfman

Struggling under the weight of his unknown attacker, Sam managed to kick up and catch his assailant in the stomach, throwing it off him. There were the sound of shots being fired and a yelp.

An extended hand entered Sam's peripheral. "You okay, Sam?" John demanded.

Sam looked up to see his father standing with his gun drawn. Behind him, a factory building loomed in the moonlight.

"Uh, yeah," Sam took John's hand and hoisted himself to his feet.

"Dad, Wolfman's on the lam," Dean gasped, sprinting up to them. This Dean was even younger than Flagstaff Dean, only seventeen or eighteen years old. "I'm going to head him off."

"Double around the back of the building and make sure he doesn't escape. Sam and I'll cover this exit and we can close in from there," John said. Dean saluted with his gun and darted off.

Factory. Wolfman. Teenaged brother. This was the werewolf hunt in '97. The one he'd written about in high school and gotten an 'A' on. "Don't let Dean go by himself," he said quickly, remembering the course of events. "He's going to get hurt."

"He'll be fine," John said brusquely, not seeming to acknowledge the fact that Sam was ten years older than he should have been. "Now get on your game, boy, we'll need every weapon we've got to take this son of a bitch down. Follow me. And don't trip over your own feet."

Sam followed his Dad around the side of the factory. They weren't more than halfway around when the sound of a struggle broke out, echoing through the otherwise still night with the sound of garbage cans clattering to the ground.

"Dean!" John called, breaking into a run with Sam close behind.

The alley was wide and cluttered. The werewolf, a huge man with black hair and a thick beard, was crouching on top of a dumpster, claws digging into the metal side and fanged teeth bared. It's shoulder was bloody with a gunshot wound went wide. At the two hunters' approach, it glanced up at them, its slitted eyes refracting the moonlight and making them glitter evilly. It snarled.

"Sam, go find your brother," John ordered, aiming his gun at the monster. Sam hurried forward even as the gunfire began ricocheting off the alley walls. He knew exactly where Dean would be. He remembered this.

His brother was sprawled in a pile of garbage bags. He appeared to be unconscious, his head lolling to the side and a steady stream of thick, congealing blood dribbling from a cut on his temple. As Sam approached, Dean started and whipped out his gun.

"Don't shoot! It's me!" Sam said quickly, raising his hands in a sign of harmlessness. "It's just me."

Dean laughed, but it sounded a little dazed. He lowered the gun. "So – I guess Lassie over there was a little stronger than I thought."

"Lycanthropy is known to produce an increase in adrenaline," Sam offered. It was freakish, talking to a Dean who was younger than him.

"Thank you for the biology lesson," Dean grimaced, raising his sleeve to dab at the wound on his head. "My leg itches."

Sam looked down. Sure enough, Dean's entire pant leg had been torn off from the knee down, and claw marks had raked grooves all the way through to the bone. His femur was clearly visible. "Damn, that looks worse than I remembered," Sam winced. "You might not want to look at this."

"Look at what?" Dean promptly looked down, his face going slightly green. "Oh God, I wasn't bit, was I?"

"No," Sam said quickly, stripping off his jacket and carefully wrapping Dean's leg in it. "You're fine."

"How the hell can you tell, you didn't even look closely at it?"

"I just know," Sam said. "Keep pressure on that, you'll be fine. I've got to go."

"Go? Wait, Sam . . ."

Sam darted down the alley, looking for a door. Any door. He caught sight of a chain-link gate at the other end of the alley. It was ajar. Hopefully it would do. He stepped through it.

"Finally. You're late," said a sleazy, nasal voice.


	5. Here Comes Mr Jordan

Sam suddenly found himself in a large, decadent office. A huge mahogany desk stood in front of a wall of windows that overlooked nothing but sky. A little, bald man in a designer suit was perched at the edge of the desk, ankles crossed almost daintily.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded. He didn't think he was from any of his memories, he was fairly certain he'd never seen the man before. "I don't remember this place. This isn't one of my memories."

"No, it isn't. This is my office."

"And you are . . ."

"My name is Zachariah," the little man gave a curdled perfunctory smile. "I'm an angel."

Sam blinked. "Aren't you supposed to have wings, or something?" he asked after a second.

Zachariah rolled his eyes. "I _do _have wings. But I didn't have time to wash them today so I'm keeping them pinned up."

Deciding to ignore the sarcasm, Sam took advantage of the opportunity to ask: "If you're an angel, you might be able to help me. My brother . . ."

" . . . is going to make a deal with a crossroads demon and sell is soul to Hell in order to bring you back to life, yes, old news," Zachariah smirked. "You're worried about him – that's all too plain."

"What do you mean?"

"You just exited your third memory of your brother being injured in some way. Obviously it's because you are afraid for his welfare and therefore your subconscious is dredging up these pathetic little daytime soap operas in response."

"You have to help him! You're an angel, you must have the power."

"Actually, that's what we're here to talk about. It seems as though the terms of your contract have been slightly renegotiated. Terminated, in fact. Loopholes are a bitch."

"What?"

"Your brother made his deal. Your restored physical wellbeing in return for his own soul. You must be worth more alive than dead."

Sam felt the defeat and the anger begin to crush him from the inside out. Dean had done it. He'd sold his soul just like their father had done for him. Sam would kill him. Why couldn't he have left well enough alone? Because it was Dean, that's why. And because he was stupid and reckless and selfish and was the one person who Sam knew loved him enough to attempt something so insane. This could not happen.

"You've got to undo it."

"Sorry, no can do." Zachariah stood up. "What I can do, however, is wipe your slate clean. See, we find that when people remember their time Up Here . . . or Down There, as the case may be . . . they have trouble readjusting – culture shock, we like to call it. So standard procedure is to obliterate any and all memories of what happens after death. Don't worry, no one would believe you even if you remembered enough to tell them anyway. Better for everyone all around, so just hold still, this won't hurt a bit."

Zachariah placed his hands on the sides of Sam's head, and Sam shouted in surprise and pain as white light burst from the angel's fingertips and seemed to shoot right through Sam's head.

"See you sometime, Sam," were the last words he heard before everything faded to black.


	6. No Place Like Home

Sam woke up on a ratty mattress in a small, dark room, breathing heavily . . .


End file.
